Finally

Well, Kale had his tubes put in his ears this morning. We had to be at the hospital by 6:30 and he wasn't seen until a little after 8:00--which was when the surgery was actually scheduled--they weren't done with him until a little after 11:00.

Apparently Mondays are very busy in the Surgical Center part of Sacred Heart. We sat in the waiting room with a lot of other people coming and going. An hour after waiting we got a phone call after Dr. Chicola did his thing (cleaning out Kale's ears and then putting the tubes in) to let us know that they were going to start the ABR test (auditory brainstem response). The test ran around two hours but would finally let us know, once and for all, if Kale has any hearing loss.

After it was all done Dr. Chicola came out to talk to us and to let us know that Kale's right ear is perfectly fine and his left ear has only very mild hearing loss. But it's not enough to require any type of hearing aid!!! So---Wooohooo!!!!

Six months and we finally have an answer! We knew he could hear us, but there was always that "what if?" looming over our heads thanks to the idiots over at Baptist Speech and Hearing.

I think back to how the audiologist at Baptist was so ready to send us to Shands Hospital and it infuriates me...even after we had already started seeing Dr. Chicola and his own audiologist. She obviously couldn't do her job (after three visits and three tests) at that point and was ready to pawn us off to somewhere else where they may or may have not even helped us. I'm so grateful that I didn't go with the ENT doctor she suggested and sought out Dr. Chicola. I'm so grateful that my friend's mother worked for him and I was able to just go through her instead of waiting an even longer time to get an appointment. And I'm so grateful that Dr. Chicola was on our side from the beginning and that he actually cares. You can just tell.


Anyway--it's been a long six months, but the wondering can finally end today...